Warning: This column may not be suitable for frothing-at-the-mouth lefties, and they should feel free and encouraged to stop reading now, put down the Yale Daily News and resume use of the bong.

They are lurking all around us, around every corner and under every other rock. Skulking in the halls. Practicing their deviant ways in secret. Abashed and fearful, they’ll not come out into the light of day, these furtive creatures.

They are, of course, the Yale Closet Conservatives. Though some may not have realized it, not all conservatives at Yale — the mecca of the old school rightists, group themselves together in the Yale Political Union as a convenient target or otherwise consent to sticking their heads out of their holes for the academic liberal’s game of whack-a-mole. Strange as it may seem to me personally, not all YCCs are enthused by the prospect of funny prank calls, funnier hate e-mails and the general goodwill of one’s always-civil fellow Yalies.

But a lack of vocalization hardly implies that one cannot contribute to the cause. Though lefties may think that only they dedicate themselves to the “good fight,” the call to contribute one’s life in support of one’s beliefs is heard by partisans of the left and right alike.

This presents an unenviable series of tasks for the dedicated of the leftist stripe. Sure, protest rallies are fine for a peripheral college pastime, but soldiering on for the sake of leftist beliefs is not a pretty picnic. You would be involved in such lovely things as helping the impoverished lead chants of “Save our safety net!” and “We work hard for our welfare check!”; interning at a Guatemalan pig farm; committing acts of vandalism and slovenliness against free trade; getting arrested; joining this “Peace Corps” institution that, despite the name, has nothing to do with the military; and maybe even having the chance to hose down the room after an exercise of “reproductive rights.”

Golly, that seems like quite a load of sacrifices to make. No wonder so many leftists shift right as they get older. Speaking of aging rightists, what should be expected of a young YCC, provided he keeps quiet enough to escape from academia with his soul, skin and diploma intact?

As the left’s hegemony over academia is the principal basis of its power, one would be forgiven for thinking it a good YCC target. While a YCC naturally inclined toward learning or scholarship should certainly take the chance to pursue this path, YCCs should not go out of their way to target the university for it is not a welcoming place for the openly conservative academician.

No, the dedicated closet Yale conservative faces the enormous burden of seeking enormous riches. This will help the movement in various ways, some of them obvious, others even more obvious. To begin just a short list, great wealth can be used to legitimately buy influence in a host of areas, fund a variety of restricted donations or mold the public opinion in the way that only money can. It hardly bears saying pecuniary success makes a suitable platform for launching one’s quests for political power. (Menial clerkships and bureaucratic lackey jobs are the lefty’s way up).

And let’s not shy away from ugly facts. Much as I would like to believe it, little could be further from the truth than the stereotype of the American rich as a bunch of money-grubbing conservative Republicans. Liberals, if not plain socialists, have for some time been painfully overrepresented among the rich, rising as they do in large part through institutions such as Yale. Young conservative recruits are needed to turn this decades-old tide.

In contrast to the calling of leftists — unpleasant trials truly deserving of being dubbed sacrifices — being called on by your beliefs to choose a lucrative career of ease and influence is hardly unpalatable. For all I know, one might just want to do so even if it were not demanded of you as a good right-winger. And with a Yale degree nearly in your pocket, you are already half-way there.

Thus it is time for YCCs to rise up and redistribute wealth the old-fashioned way — by earning it.

Brooks Eubank is a senior in Calhoun College. His columns appear on alternate Wednesdays.